Apparently the disclaimer on the backgrounds page was insufficiently clear (I shall have to change it to "Make a copy. If you link to these directly I will screw with you") so I get to play fun wildcard games with mod_rewrite. This, for example:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://www.xanga.com/.*$
RewriteRule ^/backgrounds/.*\.jpg$ /backgrounds/jpeg_for_folks_who_link_unasked.jpg
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://www.xanga.com/.*$
RewriteRule ^/backgrounds/.*\.gif$ /backgrounds/gif_for_folks_who_link_unasked.gif
was a good one. I shall have to gather up a few more extra images (tasteful, if somewhat subversive) and whip up a randomizing CGI program just for a bit of extra fun.
Posted by Dan at January 16, 2004 03:35 PM | TrackBack (0)Tasetful? Bah! Give 'em goatse :)
Posted by: Timm Murray at January 16, 2004 03:41 PMCan't, not any more. :) Besides, there's a limit to how far I want to go. It's more effective to go just a little way, as that often offends far more deeply than the in-your-face stuff.
And hey, I figure if they want to use the images I provide as substitutes, well... good for them. That I'm actually OK with.
Gotta wonder what the expression's like on the faces of the kids doing this. "But it looks OK on the google index/local page with the big warning that says not to link!"
Posted by: Dan at January 16, 2004 03:48 PMNice... Though you really should change it to an animated GIF. Maybe the same thing, but with the logo constantly jittering by a couple of pixels.
Posted by: Sean O'Rourke at January 16, 2004 09:34 PMColor-blind people see a plain blue square. Just about as offensive as any other plain blue square.
(I suggest to use yellow and black oblique stripes, with blue dots scattered around. Will make anything unreadable.)
You do realize that this will also punish people who use a proxy to block the referer header?
Posted by: Jeremy Beker at January 18, 2004 08:49 PMNo it won't. Did you even look at the code? It will only punish those who a) do not filter their referrer header and b) are, as per referrer, coming from www.xanga.com.
www.xanga.com visitors who filter their referrer will actually see the real images no problem. However, this doesn't diminish the punishment potential: the www.xanga.com webmaster can't filter his visitors' headers for them.
Posted by: Aristotle at January 19, 2004 06:23 AMhow do you filter your referrer?
Posted by: Lil' gal at March 4, 2004 01:50 AMThere's generally no good reason to filter your referrer, unless you're feeling paranoid about people watching you. (I usually prefer folks not screw with their referrer fields. There's enough stuff coming in with people faking porn links and political campaign website links to boost their traffic)
Filtering referrers to block what I'm doing is something you should go figure out yourself. (I'm firmly of the opinion that if you're going to do something obnoxious you shouldn't get any help doing it)
Posted by: Dan at March 4, 2004 08:58 AM